Inspection Pitfalls And Appraisals

Nothing about the home buying process ever seems to be easy. Like the rest of the process, inspections and appraisals can cause all kinds of chaos for both buyers and sellers.

So then...

What if an appraisal is lower than the offer?

A lot of sellers wonder what happens if the appraisal they receive comes back lower than the offer they just accepted. In this seller's market, with home prices getting driven up exponentially, this is a problem your real estate agent needs to prepare to deal with.

You will definitely want to work with your realtor to review the information you have available to see how this might have happened. A house should be worth what someone will pay, but it must be substantiated by a bank.

When we represent a seller, we build a contract that equips the buyer with the ability to perform and follow through if an appraisal is lower than the agreed sales price - and we aggressively check with their lender to ensure that the mortgage will be issued if the appraisal is different than the agreed selling price.

In these scenarios, our process often looks something like this:

A: We Build a Strong Contract that Allows a Buyer to Purchase When the Appraisal is Lower than Expected

B: We Intelligently Accept Offers Where the Lender Will Allow the Buyer to Still Purchase When the Appraisal is Lower

C: We Have a High Success Rate of Substantiating our Case with an Appraiser and Mortgage Company

Appraisals don’t need to derail a great offer and the more competent your real estate agent is, the more likely they will be to make sure these spectacular offers goes all the way through to completion.

The Scott Hutchinson Real Estate Team is a premier realtor group here in the Twin Cities area. In fact, we’ve Sold Over 1200 Homes Since 2003.Our Mission: Obtain the highest net proceeds for your home, with the fewest problems, in the shortest amount of time. Our Values: Trustworthy - Competent - Enjoyable - Rigorous

House Selling Problem: Low Appraisals & Inspection Items

Appraisals and inspections have the potential to derail the momentum of a home sale - unless your agent knows how to negotiate and position in your favor.

The Two Core Problem Scenarios:

1 - Your Appraisal Comes Back Lower than the Agreed Price

2 - After Inspection, the Buyer Comes Back with a List of Items and Wants to Use Them to Renegotiate

Real estate transactions have dozens of areas where a great realtor will create favorable scenarios for their clients, especially when you’re selling a house.

The problem is that most agents simply don’t understand the different complexities that go along with this kind of scenario. As a result, they are unable to negotiate strongly on their clients behalf.

One of our core values is to be rigorous - relentlessly pursuing the best interests of our clients.

When we represent a home seller - we’re going to help them win and gain higher net proceeds, all while reducing problems.We relentlessly pursue the best interests of our clients, and we’re comfortable claiming that we’re some of the best negotiators in Minnesota.

When an Inspection Causes Renegotiations

Great realtors relentlessly pursue favorability for their clients - which means that inspections will create grounds for attempted renegotiations. When we’re representing a buyer, we diligently pursue price reductions and renegotiations with every inspection item, and we also know how to position strongly when the shoe is on the other foot.

We protect our sellers by creating contracts and accepting offers that agree to negotiate on inspection items ONLY if the inspection shows safety or hazardous items.We position our clients in a manner that says they will only negotiate after an inspection with items that are hazardous and a safety issue.

Competent and rigorous real estate agents will know the dozens of areas where they need to shrewdly pursue favorability and negotiate wisely on your behalf.